Our Top 5 Google Ads Opportunities to Improve your Ads Performance
As a small business owner, you want to get the most out of your Google Ads budget. However, there are 5 Google Ads opportunities that you might be missing, but could significantly improve your campaign performance.
With over a decade of experience auditing Google Ads accounts, I’ve noticed the same common mistakes time and again.
The good news? These 5 issues are easy to fix, and the improvements can be immediate.
Here are five key areas where businesses often miss opportunities:
Location Targeting – A default setting can lead to ads being shown outside your target area, wasting your budget.
Auto-Applied Recommendations – Allowing Google to make automatic changes can lead to costly errors. Manual reviews are essential.
Campaign Structure – The way your campaigns are set up greatly impacts performance. Different structures suit different business goals.
Campaign Experiments – Many businesses overlook this powerful tool that allows you to test changes safely.
Performance Max for Lead Generation – While PMax can generate leads, the quality is often poor. It works best for e-commerce rather than lead gen.
Let’s explore each of these in more detail so you can optimise your Google Ads campaigns for better results.
1. Optimising Location Targeting Settings
This is one of the first things I check when reviewing an account, and it’s frequently set up incorrectly.
In campaign settings, you enter your target location. However, beneath this, there are two additional options:
Presence or interest (default) – Targets people who are either in your location or have shown interest in it, even if they’re far away.
Presence – Targets only those physically in your location.
For most businesses, selecting Presence is the better option to avoid spending money on users outside your target area.
To check how much you’ve spent on users outside your intended location:
Go to Campaigns > Dashboards.
Add Country/Territory (User location) as a row.
Include metrics such as Cost, Clicks, or Impressions.
A client targeting customers in Australia discovered a significant portion of their budget was spent outside the country simply because the default setting wasn’t adjusted. A quick fix saved them thousands.
2. Taking Control of Auto-Applied Recommendations
Google offers automated recommendations to advertisers, but these aren’t always in your best interest.
While some recommendations are useful, others can harm your campaign performance. It’s better to review and apply changes manually.
You can manage auto-applied recommendations in the Recommendations tab. Some settings to be cautious of include:
“Add responsive search ads” – Google may create new ad headlines and descriptions that don’t align with your brand.
“Add new keywords” – This may introduce irrelevant or overly broad keywords, reducing targeting precision.
However, some recommendations can be helpful:
“Use optimised ad rotation” – Prioritises better-performing ads.
“Remove non-serving keywords” – Helps keep your account tidy by eliminating keywords that aren’t generating traffic.
Regular manual reviews ensure that you stay in control of your advertising spend.
3. Simplifying and Aligning Your Campaign Structure
Your campaign structure plays a big role in performance. Common structures include:
Keyword match types – Running separate campaigns for different keyword match types.
Single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) – Highly specific ad groups that require a lot of management.
Location-based campaigns – Separate campaigns for different geographic areas.
With Google’s automated bidding system, rigid campaign structures are less relevant. Instead, structuring your campaigns based on customer search intent tends to work best.
For example, a dentist offering emergency, general, and root canal services may find that customers search for terms like:
“Affordable dentist near me”
“Best-reviewed dentist”
Rather than structuring campaigns solely by service categories, aligning them with customer search behaviour improves relevance and results.
4. Leveraging Google Ads Experiments
Google Ads Experiments is an underutilised tool that allows you to test changes safely before applying them fully.
To run an experiment:
Define the change you want to test (e.g., increasing bids, adjusting keywords, trying different match types).
Apply the change to a portion of the traffic (e.g., 50%).
Measure the results using metrics such as CTR (Click-Through Rate), CPA (Cost Per Acquisition), and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).
If successful, apply the change to the entire campaign with one click. If not, revert to the previous settings.
Experiments allow you to fine-tune your campaigns without taking unnecessary risks.
5. Refining Performance Max for Lead Generation
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns were designed for e-commerce and work well when paired with a product feed. However, for lead generation, results are often disappointing.
Issues with PMax for Lead Gen:
It prioritises low-cost, low-quality leads.
Without a product feed, Google favours Google Display Network (GDN), which often delivers poor-quality traffic.
A better approach:
Separate Search and Display campaigns to maintain greater control.
Use GDN campaigns only for remarketing rather than prospecting.
While PMax can work for lead gen, careful management is required to ensure high-quality results.
Final Thoughts: Small Adjustments, Big Impact
By refining your targeting settings, taking control of automation, simplifying your campaign structure, testing changes through experiments, and optimising Performance Max for lead generation, you can drive better results and reduce wasted spend.
Small tweaks can make a big difference. Take the time to review these areas in your Google Ads account, and you could see significant improvements in both efficiency and performance.
If you are unsure about how to leverage these PPC opportunities, you can always leave it to the pros. Book a free call with us today and we will take care of the rest.
